


The Nature of Kings

by doomcanary



Series: Conquest [5]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 08:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1338592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcanary/pseuds/doomcanary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I've been calling this kink and it's actually much more like hurt/comfort, set on a kinky background. It's not that the kink's not <i>there</i>, but... geh. These things only really come clear to me as I write, sorry guys. Plus I'm having a really shit week so I'm not really thinking straight anyway. Hope you enjoy the fic even if this part is a little short.</p></blockquote>





	The Nature of Kings

“I understand.”

“Do you.”

Merlin comes over, stands close to Arthur in his regal chair. His fingers twist the loose ends of the laces at the neck of his shirt.

“Yes. I know why I need to do what you say.”

 

Merlin's shoulders hit the wall with bruising force; Arthur's face is inches from his, furious, his hands hard on Merlin's shoulders.

“You understand?” says Arthur. “You know, do you? You lying, arrogant little -”

He shakes Merlin, as if for emphasis, then shoves him into the stone and turns away.

“You may do as I say,” he says, “or you may leave.”

Merlin takes off his shirt, and walks calmly to the table.

“Do you want to chain me?” he says.

 

Arthur is losing himself, losing his control. This, Merlin lounging against the table watching him, is torture to him; even in the irony of that he is aware of the danger his weakness for Merlin truly represents. Arthur wants to beat him, then kiss him, then beat him again. Throw him from the peak to the pit over and over, until he really does understand what's going on.

Merlin is still looking at him, waiting for an answer.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I do want to chain you.”

Merlin's eyes flicker at that, something darker stirring beneath the fear, and Arthur cracks. He throws his gloves aside and goes to him. His fingers touch Merlin's sides; Merlin's lips part. Arthur draws him in, his back smooth and muscled, and brushes his lips along the roughness of his cheek. Merlin's breath hitches and quickens. He turns his head; Arthur follows the movement, tracing his cheekbone. His lips close on Merlin's tenderly, even as he's gripping Merlin's wrist, exactly where the bruises are.

When he breaks away, he's looking into Merlin's eyes with wordless intensity; Merlin is meeting his gaze, something cool and reticent in the depths of his look. Slowly, Arthur forces himself to step back.

“Have you completed your tasks?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

Merlin smiles; gentle, seductive. “I understand.”

No. Oh gods no, he slipped, he let himself believe. This is too glib, too easy. Merlin's playing a game. A scorching anger flashes through the desire. Slowly, so slowly that anyone could stop him, Arthur draws his dagger and brings the edge of the blade to rest against Merlin's throat.

“If you understand exactly what I asked of you today,” he says, “tell me why you didn't stop me doing that.”

 

Merlin watches Arthur's face, hears the scrape of the blade in the sheath and watches it rise in the corner of his eye. Arthur is looking at him all the time, intent and so near – and then the edge of the knife touches Merlin's skin, and the Arthur he knows vanishes. Even his body stiffens, and the hand on his bruised wrist is no longer both a prison and a caress. It's a ring of dull pain he can't get free of, a shackle of flesh.

“If you understand exactly what I asked of you today,” Arthur says, cold as winter, “tell me why you didn't stop me doing that.”

Merlin knows his face clouds with anger. “What?” he asks, in furious disbelief.

Arthur simply stares him down.

“You're insane. You've lost it. The prince has gone completely mad.”

Arthur's arm is around Merlin's waist, his wrist turned behind him. Merlin fights as he's pushed back, but Arthur tangles an ankle in his and tips him onto the tabletop. He jerks up, and stops as the dagger appears over his heart, perfectly still in the air.

“I have trained you until you are as close as you can be to a match for me, Merlin,” Arthur says. “You could have stopped me drawing at any moment. And yet you chose not to.”

“I made no fucking choice at all.”

“Don't lie to me.”

“Lie to you?” Merlin's voice rises. “You – you chase me around the city with some sort of sick lesson in how you're going to have me murdered, and obeying the fucking nutcase prince is _lying_ to him?”

Arthur's tone is dusty-dry. “Now why, Merlin, would I have you killed? You're hardly a sorcerer, after all. No-one at court would believe that.”

Merlin goes stone-still.

“No. No they wouldn't. No I'm not.”

“Then what is this choice you've made? Why, Merlin, do you choose to be conquered?”

Merlin glares at him. "I am telling you," he says, "I did not choose."

The dagger draws the curve of Merlin's chest in the air, following it an inch above the skin; the point catches in the laces of Merlin's breeches.

“Don't you fucking dare -”

The dagger flicks up; the laces part. Between them, undeniable, Merlin's cock slides into view, hard, his own body betraying him. Arthur looks into his eyes, and quirks a dispassionate brow. Black, irrational fury wells up in Merlin. He doesn't even need to raise his hand.

“ _Onliþian_.”

 

The ancient syllables echo on the air. Arthur's fingers will open, against his will; the dagger will drop, and Merlin will be free. Golden light shivers down the blade, earths itself into Arthur's hand.

Arthur looks from his hand, steady and still, to Merlin's eyes. Gone are the two flat, hard pebbles of precious stone; Arthur's eyes are alive with emotion, drowning in depth.

“The half and the whole,” he says.

Merlin's world turns inside out. He stares, fumbling for words. Arthur knows that? _Arthur_ , saying that? Right to his face?

“I dreamed of the dragon, Merlin,” Arthur says. “All of this – _all_ of this -”

“The dragon.” Merlin's voice is flat with disbelief.

“My father imprisoned it, Merlin. I've always known it's there.”

“And you dream of it.”

“Never before.”

“What did it show you?”

Arthur's face closes. “The truth,” he says. “The truth of Camelot. The same truth I've shown you.”

The deaths, the burnings, the insanity of the king. The cold truth of the world in which they live. Not death; not murder by Arthur's command. The terrible certainty that death is the only truth for sorcerers in Albion; that there is only so far even the Crown Prince can go to save them.

Arthur does know. But it's not what Merlin thought.

Slowly, Merlin reaches up his hand, and closes it on the blade of Arthur's knife; the first thing in the world to be touched by his power, and shrug it away. He tightens his grip and feels a sting as the edge cuts in; feels the stickiness of blood oozing out. He was right, that Arthur reads him; he is bound to Arthur, connected. Theirs is a bond of strife, of conquest. It will always be so; conquest is in the nature of kings.

With an odd kind of peace in his heart, he looks into Arthur's eyes; they are close, so close. The sting of his hand throws Arthur's warm presence into relief; the perversity of the blood that oozes down his wrist is overlaid by Arthur's savage beauty, the musk that clings about his skin. He draws in a slow breath, tasting Arthur in the very air. He is overwhelming, this prince, this man.

“Merlin,” says Arthur quietly, his voice almost, almost steady, “is there anything you would like to do for me?”

Merlin opens his hand, looks down at the blade bright with blood. He looks up.

“No,” he says. “No there fucking is not.”

Arthur's eyes flood with betrayal and hurt. Merlin stands, and walks out of his own free will.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been calling this kink and it's actually much more like hurt/comfort, set on a kinky background. It's not that the kink's not _there_ , but... geh. These things only really come clear to me as I write, sorry guys. Plus I'm having a really shit week so I'm not really thinking straight anyway. Hope you enjoy the fic even if this part is a little short.


End file.
